Spotlight Features

The Federal Communications Commission passed a little-publicized order last month that changes how cable television providers can deliver basic broadcast channels. This rule change has far-reaching implications for those who legally grab their basic broadcast channels for free from cable, but don't ...

How can classic retail, the brick-and-mortar physical stores dotting our neighborhoods, compete with the likes of Amazon and Zappos? Can real-world retail survive e-commerce? And if it can, what's the trick? How do retailers intend to meet this growing threat? We're now seeing something insidious t...

It's not enough to have just a website, or just social media profiles. Businesses need to have both, and the traffic needs to flow seamlessly between them. Numerica Credit Union was looking for a way to offer customers a useful tool on its Facebook page while driving traffic from Facebook to its sit...

A few years ago, Dave Getty and his wife went on a road trip through Texas. They didn't bring a laptop, so they relied solely on their smartphones to surf the Web. They quickly realized how important it is for sites to be mobile-friendly. "It was an eye-opening experience," said Getty, a spokesperso...

When Google withdrew from China, it didn't send out a press release or hold a press conference. Instead, it announced the news on its corporate blog. This move proved to be a "milestone event for corporate blogging," said Lou Hoffman, CEO of The Hoffman Agency. "Even though the Google corporate blog...

Shana and Len Bentivegna started their online store, Organic Pet Boutique, as a result of pet food scares and their concern for the safety of their two Shih Tzus, Milo and Ceasar. "After discovering organic and natural pet food was the only safe alternative, we decided to go online to purchase their...

It's not enough to have just a website, or just social media profiles. Businesses need to have both -- and the traffic needs to flow seamlessly between them. Numerica Credit Union was looking for a way to offer customers a useful tool on its Facebook page while driving traffic from Facebook to its ...

All businesses can't afford pricey website designers, which is why Shanti Sosienski was inspired to start DIY Websites Now, a company that teaches people how to build their own. "Basically, we are a collective of designers, programmers and project managers who saw the need to service those potential...

Video engages customers, tells stories and creates brand loyalty like no other medium. As a young entrepreneur, Andrew Angus owned an alternative fuel business. As part of his marketing efforts, he made a brief video explaining the process of making fuel from agricultural residues. The experience ma...

Mike Heaston knows the power of a good cycling event. Get the people out there, biking through the Colorado mountains, and they'll become loyal and steadfast customers. "We're putting on events that people love," said Heaston, owner of EventMarketing Group. "We're creative, and these are our product...

Text messages are intimate, to-the-point, and readable, and they bring marketing messages straight to where people spend much of their time -- their phones. Texting, it turns out, is more than just a series of LOLs or smiley faces between friends. Increasingly, it's also a savvy and effective market...

Botnets represent a major security threat to e-commerce. The effectiveness of this malicious software has gone far beyond the realm of simple annoyance and inconvenience to a major global, technical and economic challenge. The botnet security issue has become so difficult that federal agencies and t...

Engaging the customer has always been fundamental to doing good business. It's just that now that engagement often starts in digital, social media realms. The trick is to figure out how to make one's content as interesting as all the other content that shows up in the newsfeed, and this is where soc...

The U.S. government's pursuit of cloud-based technology has been characterized by a blizzard of policies, directives, technical studies, proposed contract vehicles and conferences. The federal "cloud first" initiative, requiring agencies to give priority consideration to cloud solutions for IT opera...

The U.S. government is learning quickly that achieving the next big thing in information technology depends upon implementing a huge number of little things. For federal IT managers, that big thing is the cloud. Federal agencies have busily pursued cloud solutions since December 2010, when the gover...